If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
So now we have Rambo Obama, a steely warrior who, according to a lengthy leaked insider account in The New York Times, hurls death-dealing drones at a...
Why is Guantanamo still open? Why has there been no public accounting for the use of torture? Why does President Obama successfully claim the right to assassinate American citizens living abroad? And why do civil libertarians lose arguments of this sort time and again?
Does torture fit with historical American values? One need only look to the filmography of the great Dana Andrews for the answer.
If we really want to honor the Americans in uniform who gave their lives fighting for their country, we'll redouble our efforts to make sure we're worthy of their sacrifice; we'll renew our commitment to the rule of law, for the rule of law is essential to any civilization worth dying for.
Brazil's human rights conundrum is likely to continue with Dilma's recent approval of closer military, intelligence and security cooperation with Washington, ostensibly linked to the World Cup and the Rio Olympics.
On Monday, May 21, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture joins with Amnesty International USA and the Center for Constitutional Rights in delivering more than 60,000 names of people who have signed statements urging President Obama to issue a formal apology to Arar.
The Tibetans are standing up to the vast and expanding power of the Chinese state with nonviolent resistance through religious practice, song, literature and even self-immolation.
The U.S. cannot un-torture Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. It cannot redo the detention of these men in a way that is humane and just. There is, however, the chance to ensure that the court in which they are judged is not a further perversion of the values Americans claim to hold dear.
Jim Gaffigan recently spoke with me about why he's reaching out to military families, why becoming famous has been both a blessing and a curse, and why his stand-up doesn't need swear words to hit home.
I have now been to Guantánamo six times. Nothing I've seen has changed my view that the military commissions are unworkable. The system is set up to guarantee convictions and hand down death sentences, nothing more.
The Los Angeles Times exposé a couple weeks ago offers chilling testimony of how badly sentiments and moral judgments can slide out of kilter in time of war.
Speaking to former Guantanamo detainee 727 was like talking to a prisoner of Azkaban, that terrible prison guarded by soul-sucking Dementors from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series.
Jose Rodriguez's book, Hard Measures, does not seem so much deluded as willfully misleading, an apologia for some of the most controversial choices made by the Bush administration and the CIA.
It's hard to imagine that any American, Jose Rodriguez included, would argue waterboarding isn't torture if the tapes in question depicted Iranian or Chinese agents waterboarding captured American pilots.
Every interrogation starts with analysis. That is, getting to know the detainee, researching their background, exploring their relationships with others, reviewing any available information and figuring out what makes them tick.
Another year, another round of the torture debate -- the pattern keeps repeating itself. Each year, the pro-torture advocates submit a new mouthpiece, and each year the anti-torture advocates offer up actual interrogators.
